Finding Common Ground: The Importanceof Political Diversity
同志社国際高等学校

上２年

村剛

賢

“Do you realise that it’s murder?!” “That makes no sense! What makes you
think that you have any right to tell women what to do with their bodies?!”“What about the unborn child, then?! All human life is valuable!”No, these aren’t vicious attacks spewed from the mouths of politicians.
They’re words that were thrown around in an argument about abortion
between my friend and another classmate at the school I used to go to.
Abortion, climate change, police brutality, the gender pay gap, immigration.
People tend to get emotionally charged, and more often than not, hostile when
they talk about these political landmines. It is not rare these days to hearreports of gruesome clashes between the Antifa and far-right protesters
staining the streets red with blood. Undoubtedly, our society is currently morepolarised than ever before.

that is contributing to this problem is the widespread consumption of news
on social media websites. As an example of this, when I log in to Twitter,more than half of the tweets in my feed contain some form of politicalopinion that reinforces and strengthens my views. Because of this, I used tohave rigid political opinions, dismissing all alternatives that went against mineas ‘invalid’. This kind of cognitive inflexibility causes friction when people
from opposite sides of the political aisle cross each other.

How do we combat this problem that we’ve become all too familiar with? The
best way to treat this is for you to intentionally surround yourself with people
that you don’t agree with. I have a friend who has opposing views from meon

almostevery

political

issue,

whichexposes

metoviewpoints

thatchallenges my political beliefs. This helped me immensely in overcoming theaforementioned

rigid

politicalmindset

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thatI

had

fallenvictimto.

高校生―Ｉ部門

What is it that’s causing this polarisation in our society? One major factor

Understanding why he held a particular opinion made me challenge my own
beliefs

and

left

me

wonderingifthosebeliefs

werebuilt

onlogicalfoundations. We must have systems of checks and balances in our own minds
to ensure that we don’t reject sound logical arguments for simply goingagainst our existing ideas.

“But,” you might say, “How could I discuss politics with someone who has
wildly different views from me?” In his speech addressing the United Nations
General Assembly, Ronald Reagan said, “I occasionally think how quickly ourdifferences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat fromoutside this world.” The first step we need to take in order to solve this split
is finding common ground; a common issue that both sides can agree on, acommon enemy that both sides can fight against, a common comrade thatboth sides can fight along with. The West and the Soviet Union battled
alongside one another in WWII to destroy Nazi Germany; they found acommon enemy. The same has to be done when talking about politics. If you
find yourself in a political conversation with someone whose basic principles
differ from yours, start by discussing fundamental political values that both
高校生―Ｉ部門

sides can agree on, and then start debating from there.

Clearly,thelackofpolitical cooperation

isstaggering theprogressofcivilization as a whole. If we were to solve this problem, we must first do itat the individual level. Exposing yourself to a variety of political ideologies isthe best cure for this disease. We must consciously force ourselves to keep
our political ideologies in check because, as John Dewey wrote, “Mankind likes
to think in terms of extreme opposites. It is given to formulating its beliefs interms of Either-Ors, between which it recognizes no intermediate possibilities.”

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